Saturday, August 11, 2007

Spare the rod. Shove the entire pole instead.

Today's daily news carried an article about punishing children.

To sum it up, capitulate and otherwise round up - teachers are likely to be spanked by the men in uniform if they spank the children in uniform. Which might just be bad news for those who are in "the noblest of all professions" right now.

I disagree.

We are going the American way. Yeah truth, justice, child laws and all that jazz, but those blokes overdid it quite a bit. If there are any who take offence, please do. To not hit a child, or to point out their mistakes, or to not give them a scolding is wrong. The old wives who didn't spare the rod sure knew what they weren't spoiling. Obviously, the venerable bearded (and hairless) ones that passed this particular decree don't know either.

Have you ever been in a classroom? Ever corrected marksheets? Ever controlled a bunch of 50 odd angels who have their horns neatly combed over? Ever had to handle bawling 6 year olds one time and hormonal 16 year olds the next? No? Neither have I.

School isn't an arena. It's one of those places that actually attempt to get something into our brains. It teaches how to compete. It teaches how to fend for oneself among otherselves. From fighting over playground space to duking it out for the teachers' affections - it's all a part of growing up. Real life isn't that much different. We still fight over cubicle space and duke it out over the boss' favours. And those same people in positions of authority do take your case. They dole out criticisms which border on chaotically destructive. School is about preparing for the real life. It doesn't really matter whether you scored 98.7 or 83.4. What matters is what you are capable of. And if you aren't capable of cultivating a little "stupid" comment, you're pretty much keeping the plankton company in the food chain. At least nobody knocks plankton.

So if someone in a black cassock sans wig decides that the morale of the "citizens of tomorrow" is best guided by not calling a spade a spade, then bully taw. May their system face a rot of thought.

Which it already has.

8 comments:

Tarang said...

whatever you might say,
'corporal punishments' is a punishable offence now !!
whoo !!
happy schooling
:)

Kartik Ayyar said...

i dont give a fuck anyways. coz i'll be schooling my children in the safe confines of my home. who trusts the edu system which is run by a puppeteer who's also a dowry hunter?

maybe the black coats shud be looking more closely at other's wives rather than their children.

Unknown said...

Apart from molding unruly angels into decent devils school life also at times laves behind an illusion of an Utopian world of fairness and justice, which the more one clings to suffers the more. However as time passes illusion blends into reality....as vented by angry voices. So once more voices please remain angry.

dreamy said...

I agree with you, in parts.

Karthik Balasubramanian said...

reminds me of a stand up comedy clip by russell peters.. I know i would have been one rascal if my mom or dad never raised their hand..

the clip -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI

Anonymous said...

Never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but Russell made sense after all. Especially abroad, beat the mofos so that they don't become social outcastes.

Unknown said...

Love it! The trademark A tongue-in-cheek-ness ;)

But I don't subscribe to your theory though

Macadamia The Nut said...

I like the head line.